“We are gathered here today for a very profound purpose… a holy purpose.

To laugh.

You’re here, and listening to me, because you and I both know that you are going to lose your mind.

Literally.

And that’s going to happen.

Count on it.

But before I begin leading this entire room to a cascade of pants-pissing insanity, we have to remember the Gods. Lenny Bruce. Gildna Radner. Robin Williams.

Let us agree begin by honoring those, named and unnamed, who led us to here today, with a moment of silence.

( silence )

Now, down to business.

You paid your money to be, effectively, »forced to laugh.

And I’m going to make that happen.

But, in terms of honesty, the joke’s on you.

Because I’m a psychic comedian.

I spent the last three weeks… totally ripped on the insanity of your own minds. Your fears and concerns, the way you think about your lives and families.

And I gotta tell you this.

Compared to your minds, psychedelic drugs are boring.

You folks are out there thinking and behaving in ways so ridiculous, that I will never, ever, even once, briefly, approach them in my comedic prodigy.

Compared to what you do and think—every day and every moment—my riffs are like wrappers on candy.

So let me congratulate you. You blew my mind to shreds, all day, every day… to such a degree that I was only able to remember about a thousandth of your insanity.

And when I present that to you, tonight.

I know you’ll recognize yourself.

Long before I caused your mind to wreck its tiny ship on the rocks I make in jest — you ruined me.

My whole ancestral line.

You obliterated everything.

All the way back before Grandma.

You went directly to the origin of every absurd aspect of my consciousness and opened the fucking door to abject nonsense.

Without remorse.

So, listen, whatever happens from here on out, is »you. Not me.

You ripped my mind to shreds. I’ve been had by you like a drunken teenage boy in a strip club.

You took me apart at the seams, and kept going.

And for that, I want to thank you.

For the rest of this evening…

…I will return the favor.

Because I intend to deliver on your investment of cash, attention, and, if I may say so, fouled underwear.

I have one more thing to say, and take it however you care to.

But later, you will understand why it all begins here:

Fish basket.”

— Bobby Yingo at the Palace of Fine Arts